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AP exam scores are reported on a 1-5 scale and are intended to be comparable to the A-F grade scale (5 = A, 3 = C). The College Board grades each exam to get a raw score and then decides where to set the thresholds for a scaled score of 2, 3, 4, and 5. The ceiling could be lifted simply by reporting the raw scores as well as the 1-5 scaled scores.

A problem with raw scores is that they aren't consistent from year to year. My knowledge all comes from talking to graders and head graders from the 90's, but I assume it is still similar. Keeping grades between tables(literal folding tables) consistent in a given session was a huge issue. Trying to normalize this across different tests over multiple years just wasn't possible. Raw scores in different years just meant different things. The tests just weren't normalized that way.

I thought about that but believed raw scores would be useful because a large fraction of students for a seat in September 2014 who submitted (for example) BC Calculus scores did so from the spring 2013 version as juniors (since scores from spring 2014 tests taken as seniors would come too late for admissions purposes). For most AP exams, I'd guess that half or more of the scores submitted for admissions come from exams taken as juniors at the same sitting.